The anti-capitalists are usually dissatisfied intellectuals–people who discover that their academic training does not get them what they consider to be their “just reward” or “true worth” in the free market system–that are envious of the rich.

It is this envy–essentially envy of social status, not envy of money per se–that usually motivates anti-capitalists in the USA. It is envy based, not on the belief that in a just world they would have more money, but on the the belief that, in a just world, they would be the world’s leaders instead of those awful rich people.

The real cause of anti-capitalism, at least my experience shows, is almost invariably not poverty, but frustrated self-importance–the kind confined (in its more virulent forms, at least) to teenagers and professional intellectuals. The poor, in general, have better sense.”

I agree with Skeptic. I have been saying the same thing about Robespierre for years now. When you read about him and read some of his writings, it seems that he felt highly offended that he was not in charge and that instead, people that he considered inferior buffons – the aristocrats – were above him in status. These people are very narcisssistic and very dangerous. They must be exposed as often as possible.
I have also observed that many intellectuals seem to be enamoured with their own thought process and believe that those thought processes are somehow superior to the thought processes of those they consider to be lesser beings. They think that their ideas are unique, they are not, many people have them but most people are not so impressed with their own ideas that they think that they should write books about them. I am not anti-intelectual and do enjoy many of their writings but it is clear to me that some are bitter narcissits. Sartre, De Beauvoir, Nietzsche, Chomsky come to mind.
Sartre appealed to me when I was a teen-ager, I grew out of it. Sartre never did.

However, there are three problems with free-market economics that the article does not address. One, people are very, very often not particularly rational in their economic choices, allowing emotional considerations to overtake them. Two, even when they try to be as rational as possible, consumers very rarely have enough information to make the decision that is truly in their own best interests (and producers tend to like it like that). And three, our accounting systems are woefully inadequate to the task of incorporating market externalities into prices. Taken together, this results in, at best, suboptimal societal outcomes. Markets must be regulated to prevent fraud and obfuscation (false advertising), or consumers have no real chance to be equal participants. Accounting systems must be expanded to completely capture and represent all costs.

So, yay capitalism, great so far, but we have a long ways to go to achieve truly free markets of fully informed, rational participants, and I submit that that would be impossible without government regulation.

“Communism doesn’t work because people like owning stuff.” -Frank Zappa

Shermer tells us that while in all other forms of society economic inequalities occur when elites “exploited an unfair and rigged social system to achieve gains best described as ill-gotten”, capitalism is uniquely different. Inequalities like the billion dollar paychecks of some corporate CEOs, we are supposed to believe, are the result of “natural differences in drive and talent between members of a society equally free to pursue their right to prosperity”. Shermer offers us no evidence to support this remarkable assertion.

Former ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond earned a salary of $1.7 billion dollars annually. Could it really be that Raymond has 40,000 times the “drive and talent” of a university professor earning $40,000 per year? If so, Mr. Raymond must be truly remarkable. Is he perhaps a superhuman with mutated muscles and neurons that allow him to accomplish tens of thousands of times more work than the human norm? Maybe this is so, but I can think of another possibility. Perhaps Mr. Raymond is simply an ordinary mortal, and capitalism in practice is just like all those other forms of human society in which an unfair and rigged social system produces ill-gotten gains.

Soviet Communism failed because people wanted more than their neighbor, and soon realized through an increase in information that their “beastly” Capitalist enemies actually had a higher quality of life. Their government lied to them through their control of the media, and intense disinformation campaigns. “Greed,” although you seem to use it in the perjroative sense, is certainly at work here, but laziness has little to do with it. Most people are “lazy” under conditions that do not ultimately benefit them, or the people closest to them. However, I consider that perfectly rational, and well, empowering.

Not everyone wants to be a member of some wider society. Many people have their lives, and they want to dedicate their resources, and time to that life. They should be allowed to do so, without constant meddling.

It’s easy to be “lazy” when the government has provided you with a sure path to a dead end job. Again, it’s the lack of understanding of basic human behavior that seems to galvanize these naive views about what human beings want, need, and will tolerate over long periods of time.

This is what is at the heart of Michael Shermer’s thoughts on the topic, and as usual, it seems to soar directly above the heads of already indoctrinated idealists.

People talk of socio-economic experimentation in democratic societies as if such systems can be maintained, and instituted in every election cycle. In democratic societies, political strategies constantly come in and out of vogue due to the public’s ability to hire someone new.

This is why the system which allows for the greatest amount of freedom tends to be the most favored over other systems that institute wide social strategies, or experiments through government coercion. The reality is, such ideological systems cannot be sustained democratically over long periods of time. The government must then find ways to maintain control over the system.

You could fight tooth and nail to win a single election that promises you your wonderful social scheme. However, it could all be (and would likely be) replaced after the next election unless state tampering was involved. So, you’ll have to do more than groan on about every possible imbalance derived from Capitalism. There isn’t a perfect strategy that benefits all individuals. Freedom, even when it results in some people not benefiting from it, is still better than a system that drags the masses down with it.

The reason that Shermer is not dedicating a relatively short essay to highlighting every negative aspect of Capitalism is because that sentiment is already expressed in ample quantity by his audience: The Skeptical Community. The responses on this thread tends to reinforce that impression.

It jives with my theory that many Skeptics come into the fold as rabid Atheists, and then learn that there’s a whole host of other issues to be skeptical about. This proves to be incredibly frustrating, and pedantic, and so they revert to the fingers in the ears strategy. Ad Hominem attacks soon follow.

It appears that many Skeptics, and Academics seem to have faith in some utopian ideal of human interaction that I believe is childishly absurd, and, in the end, is incredibly damaging to human progress. People have entirely too much confidence in their own world view, and I have found that righteousness to be most common in supposedly Skeptical circles.

Anyhow, Capitalists critiques are necessary, but individuals, or groups who still pray for the demise of Capitalist systems will be looked upon in the future with the same sense of awe as “The Flat Earth Society.”

History, and therefore, the future, is not on their side.